1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote copy system in which a plurality of image forming apparatuses are connected to each other via a network, an image forming apparatus and a control method therefor, and a storage medium storing a control program for implementing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a printer of a local copying machine is busy performing a printing operation, as a means for quick delivery of a copy, a remote copy system has been conventionally used in which an image of an original is scanned using a scanner of the local copying machine, and then a remote copying machine or printer is caused to output a copy of the image of the original. The remote copy system executes a remote copy process in which a raster (bitmap) image is transferred.
In the above remote copy system, for more efficient print output by a remote apparatus, in order to determine an optimum apparatus that performs an image forming process, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-209377 proposes the following technique: An optimum image processing apparatus that is capable of performing the designated image process is determined referring to respective time points at which image processing apparatuses can start image processing, image processing formats, and image processing speeds, and image transfer speeds of the apparatuses.
In the conventional remote copy system, when the resolution of the scanner of the local apparatus and the resolution of the printer of the remote apparatus are different from each other, it is required to perform resolution conversion of raster image data. This resolution conversion causes degradation of image quality.
Further, when image processing is performed so as to improve the quality of an image output by remote copy, depending on the image processing performance, such as image processing speed, of a remote apparatus selected as an output apparatus for outputting the image, there sometimes occurs a case in which the productivity of the remote copy is markedly degraded.